Romney: Losing a job is 'devastating'

1/12/12 10:13 AM EST

In the wake of the Bain movie that went public yesterday, which accused Mitt Romney of being responsible for thousands of job losses, Romney addressed the issue of job losses this morning. He told reporters in South Carolina this morning, per POLITICO's Reid Epstein, that losing a job is a "tragedy" and said firms like Bain do their best to make sure job losses don't happen:

I think any time a job is lost it’s a tragedy. For the family, for the individual that loses a job, it’s devastating. And every time that we invested in the business it was to try and encourage that business to have ongoing life. The idea of making a short-term profit actually doesn’t really exist in business because no one wants to buy something or buy stock in a company that’s going to be a short-term success. You want it to be long term. And when we invested we tried to make businesses more successful for the long time and hopefully, over time, generate a return to the shareholders and see more employment. That’s the whole idea. And I can say this, for the people in South Carolina, I’m very pleased that businesses like The Sports Authority added many, many more jobs in South Carolina and across the country.

Reid wrote last night about how team Romney is going on offense on the Bain issue -- and this response, focusing on the businesses Bain helped and the jobs their work created, fits with that new strategy.